College given lottery funding to help get students active

Stephanie Bateman

North Lindsey College has been given £78,200 funding from Sport England to reduce the number of their students who are completing less than thirty minutes of activity each week.

Sport England’s new Strategy ‘Towards an Active Nation’ puts tackling inactivity at the heart of what they do. As part of this initiative Sport England is investing £5 million into projects in colleges that will support their inactive students into regular activity.

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Sport England research found:

Nearly 1/5 (roughly 138,000) college students are inactive i.e. do less than 30 minutes of physical activity a week as per England’s Chief Medical Officer’s recommendations. Nearly 2/3 of the inactive group do nothing at all.

Students who go to college are more inactive than students who go to sixth form or university.

Being active can make a big difference to everyone’s health: 1 in 6 adults in the UK die as a result of being inactive.

Stacey Blackwell (Inactivity Project leader) stated, “Due to our successful bid National lottery funding have provided us with a fantastic opportunity. North Lindsey College we will be providing bespoke sessions chosen by the students, working around their timetables and reducing as many barriers as possible that prevents students engaging in physical activity and sport. The project will be steering away from the norm of football, netball and rugby and looking to create strong partnerships with external community clubs and activity centres to provide bespoke sessions within college and outside of college, providing activity examples such as archery, wall climbing, swimming, cycling and walking groups etc. The sessions focuses will be about having fun, developing social skills, making new friends, providing support towards good mental health and having positive experiences with physical activity and sport whilst encouraging students to continue being physically active after their studies at college.”

Around one in five college students are inactive and many come from groups that have lower socio-economic status or from ethnic groups that are less likely to be active. Colleges in the programme will target these groups specifically to reduce the activity gap between them and their student peers.

Mike Diaper, Executive Director of Community Sport said: “College is a crucial time in a young person’s development. It is often the first time that activity is not a compulsory part of their study programme and therefore all too many young people become inactive. This funding will allow colleges to be innovative in addressing the needs and desires of their students to help embed activity in their lifestyle in college and for years to come.”

Sport England is a public body and invests more than £300 million National Lottery and government money each year in projects and programmes that help people get active and play sport.

It wants everyone in England, regardless of age, background, or level of ability, to feel able to engage in sport and physical activity. That’s why a lot of its work is specifically focused on helping people who do no, or very little, physical activity and groups who are typically less active - like women, disabled people and people on lower incomes.

For further information on the national programme please contact: SportEnglandFE.Team@sportengland.org